Land Use within the European Common Market

Abstract

A LTHOUGH the accepted plan for the European Common Market envisages freedom of exchange of agrarian products, it will be many years before that will become reality. The difficulty is not only one of adjustment of the pattern of land use to such a free trade region. To a large extent the problem is how to unite the economies of the member nations, since these nations vary greatly with regard to production costs, consumption prices, and government protection and help. One of the first steps towards a comprehensive understanding of the problem is an inventory of the present; conditions. This study is an effort to start such an inventory. With limited field time available (the author spent the second part of 1957 in Europe) and also because of the size and complexity of the problem, this article is in general terms. But it may suffice to convince the reader that it is not a simple process to develop economic unity and that it will take a long period of planning before that unity can function effectively. The basis of this study is a map of standards of land use (Fig. 1). Besides the map there are several statistical tables which provide information. A brief description of the map is necessary before evaluation of the land use of the individual nations can be attempted.